Secret Bunker boss who said ghost touched girl cleared of sex assault

A tourist attraction boss who told police a girl he was accused of sexually assaulting at a former Cold War nuclear bunker she was “attacked by a ghost” was today cleared of the charges.

James Mitchell - who runs the Scotland’s Secret Bunker museum in north east Fife - was alleged to have sexually assaulted two young women, one aged just 15, in separate attacks four years apart in sleeping accommodation at the underground bunker.

Mitchell, of Lower Largo, denied the charges against him at Dundee Sheriff Court and stood trial over five days.

Today a jury found Mitchell guilty on the charge of assaulting the girl that he later claimed had been touched by a ghost.

But because the jury found the second charge not proven - and the case relied on both offences being proven beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction on either - a sheriff was forced to acquit him of all the charges.

One of his alleged victims told the jury that a man fitting Mitchell’s description had entered the bedroom where she was sleeping at around 4am, put his hand under the covers and touched her leg before sneaking out of the room.

She got up and, with a friend, left the bunker in the dead of night.

The second girl told how she was 15 at the time of the incident and that Mitchell had tried to kiss her before placing his hands on her private parts.

She said she told him no before he went on to carry out a sex act on her.